Just the facts, ma'am... (or, rather, in this case, pure speculation from a night of heavy drinking in cold weather):

Heard the rumor several times that Google's search quality team has undercover link buyers working for them (I only find it hard to believe because it seems like they could put that manpower to better uses)

David Temple - I finally got to meet him in person and he is amazing. Smart, funny, genuine, personable... I'm thrilled to go to China with him next spring.

Todd Malicoat has a big crush on Lisa Barone (who's as charming in person as she is on the blog). He's trying to hide it, even from himself, but it's tough going (oh man am I going to take heat for writing this tomorrow).

I met someone who used to employ SEO Fangirl... Her identity should be revealed in the next couple days.

Kim Krause and her husband Eric just celebrated their 2nd anniversary on the plane to Chicago - a toast to them both!

Danny's going to be announcing something on SELand very soon that I'm extremely excited about... something that will include a party.

Vanessa Fox is wicked fast - she made a mad dash to grab Rebecca's bag off our plane from Seattle to Chicago at the end of the flight. I commented to Rebecca - "wow, she's not just good at sitemaps."

DaveN needs to do a better job of optimizing his beer drinking... my right ear suffers the consequences :)

Eveyone's worried about Microsoft - Vista is getting bashed, Live is taking heat, even Xbox is getting eclipsed by the two new consoles. Since they're in my backyard, I feel a duty to stand up for them - I'm trying to get an interview with Eytan Seidman in the next few weeks.

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My theory is that they invited everybody because its cold as heck outside and that would deter some folks from going. I didn't go. Was having too much with a small group in the bar and we got free food at another one later, because we made nice with the staff. Long story. Celctic band...and the same patient waitress from last night who put up with loads of incoming SEO's piling in at once when her shift had just ended.
PS - Rebecca is wonderful to hang out with. :)

The Yahoo party was pretty stellar - they regained some fame in my mind. The live band was a bit quirky with their afro wigs and such - but they were great. The only down side was the half-naked chubby dude that got on stage and "danced" at the end of the night. MY EYES - MY EYES - ouch!
The biggest bummer is that the Yahoo! party ended at 10pm? 10:00?? Who the hell ends a party in Chicago at 10:00? - Not to worry, there's always the Irish bar back at the hotel where I hung out with too many people to name, but mostly kissed up to Giselle from DM News (link love maybe?) - then moved on to chat with Rebecca (Hi Rebecca).
I think I was actually trying to give Rebecca pointers on presenting at SES (hoping she'll do it soon) - but Rebecca, since I can't remember what I told you, and I'm sure it wasn't very understandable anyway - might I recommend we just forget about that conversation? :)

Google DOES have undercover link buyers working for them.
They cynically negotiate with big dollars to discover what tactics are offered to make the links as natural as possible for Search Engines - and, for PageRank flow.
Social Engineering is essential, whether it is done via an Engineer's Blog, or reading and posting in forums (undercover) - this information is used when creating new updates and Algos and spam filters and anti SEO strategies

Heard the rumor several times that Google's search quality team has undercover link buyers working for them (I only find it hard to believe because it seems like they could put that manpower to better uses)

This rumor has been around for a while. I don't see why it should take up a lot of anyone's time. They could buy a few links a week, or maybe just browse the inventories.
A robot could browse the inventories. Anything a human has to type in to see data can be programmed into software. Google has a lot of programming resources.
Is it cost-effective for them? Who knows?
Paid links tend to stand out like sore thumbs anyway.

I'm all for sharing information SEW, but these kinds of statements -- without verifiable attribution to a reputable source -- don't transform the rumor as Rand reported on it into objective fact.
I realize people hear things in the backrooms and such, but backroom chatter doesn't substantiate anything. Especially not in an industry where even most insiders are said not to know what the "secret sauce" for any given tool actually is.

Verifying anything about Google search quality is akin to pulling teeth sans anaesthetic.
Secrecy is so strong in Google and it's somewhat weird given their stated goal of making the world's information searchable. That world excludes Google itself.

Quite right, RC. :)
Point is, really the goal of any decent link development campaign is to use links in a natural manner - not because you are trying to "game" Google, but simply because your client is trying to buy a slice of online presence.
If Google want to "devalue" quality links, all they're basically asking is how to devalue one of the key aspects of the net.
Sometimes I really wish Google would step out of their box and realise that quality companies developing quality links really aren't a threat to the quality of Google's results.

Dude, Yahoo! is letting everybody in this time? Figures. I'm not even going to this conference but I was pretty mad about the last party they didn't invite me to. Shizzle, even SEO Loser was invited to that one!
Oh well. Next conference Im at they probably give out something cool and I'll not goet one... either that or they'll send all their large advetisers some neat holiday shwag... except me of course.

Hehe you're like an seoloser loser. Hey you didn't miss much anyway, nowhere near as cool Yahoo party in Vegas. Heck they even let Neil and Cameron in here. Wait they even let me in, oh no, I guess I'm an seoloser loser too.